Wiki Users Guide

pBiblx2 Street Wise Bible System

This Users-Guide is intended to acquaint new users to the driving concepts behind PCARR and familiarise frequent users to the ministerial and evangelical possibilities behind the technologies utilised herein.

This documentation is constantly developing thanks to the contributions of PCARR users.

(This presentation itself is a simple text wiki page)

I. Introduction

What's a Wiki?

The concept of a Christian Wiki is not new [see BibleWikis]. A true Wiki typically hosts user contributed encyclopaedic content.

Collaboration!

Users can collaborate with one another, contribute and edit each others content, collectively producing a useful knowledge base.

Simplicity!

Pages are written in plain text. Simple text formatting syntax can be added. The Wiki takes care of the formatting and general overhead.

Automated!

Contributed pages are automatically cross linked and referenced to other relative pages and all are easily searched.

What makes a Wiki so useful?

Notes are easily entered and indexed to the current topic

Threads of similar thoughts are easily generated

Others can edit add or make comments

This PCARR Wiki implementation differs in that it seeks to document the practical day to day knowledge of God's Word applied toward our outreach to others.

Think of it as a communal "Christian Outreach HOWTO" Wiki.

What makes the PCARR Wiki so useful to Christians:

Your personal notes are now where ever there is a computer.. any computer!

Your notes are now useful to many more people other than just yourself!

Anyone of any age or aptitude can share!

And more than that:

PCARR intentionally focuses on practical outreach and not on theological or doctrinal debate.

Each pBiblx community polices itself and develops as it sees fit

Each pBiblx community can sync content with other trusted pBiblx partner sites.

Study and notes and tags and references and resources come to life

With the PCARR wikis you can:

Link your notes to other peoples notes

Link their notes to yours

Link all pBiblx resources to keywords

PCARR automatically:

Links common keywords in your text to their many appropriate resources

Formats your plain text into HTML for printing or presentation

Links external HTML sources that you provide

Generates an RSS syndicated feed for RSS aggregation

II. Collaboration

There are many helpful ways for you to contribute:

Proof reading and spell-grammar checking.

Composing content or stubs for future content.

Adding references, internal and external links to existing content.

Commenting with personal experiences.

Translation into other languages.

In everything, we ask that all contributions be prayerfully considered, thoughtful of all levels of ability and readership, encouraging, and spoken from direct experience. This effort should not become a substitute for real life face to face outreach.

There are currently four implementations of the same pBiblx2 PCARR Wiki.

So you can see that there are plenty of ways for you to become involved!

III. Format

Each pBiblx wiki attempts to organise multiple pages into specific threads or focuses.

A hierarchy should exist from general headings down to specific topics.

The Contents Page contains the top level headings to avoid clutter.

This file contains links to the next level where topic range begins to spread out.

These secondary topics are usually determined by the system administrator and contain links to more specific user contributed topics.

It is suggested:

that you keep your topic files short and to the point avoiding preachiness

that you divide complex themes into multiple files linking to each other.

that you provide references and further resource links as much as possible.

that you search for your topic before generating duplicate content.

Content can be just plain text with or without formatting syntax. The important thing is to capture the initial thought. You or someone else can always go back and provide format syntax. The specific simple rules of syntax are found in the HelpFile.

Basically:

just study as you would be anyway using the vast resources of pBiblx2

take and keep your notes on the pBiblx2 Note wiki

tie your notes together later with a PCARR practical application

It is advised that if you are editorialising another persons content that you place comments at the bottom of the file instead of making wholesale changes to the original text.

IV. Possible Uses

The Wiki has the ability to grow into anything that the users desire.

It could be a note taking device on a private single user system.

It could be family or group study or devotional on a small communal system.

It could be a larger evangelical or encyclopedic tool on a public system.

Everyone is encouraged to contribute to this Wiki no matter what chronologic age or spiritual maturity. The motto should be that if you have received a benefit from this, you should also contribute.

We are not attempting to be Theologians here, simply wise and obedient fruitful followers of Jesus.